An internal combustion engine includes a combustion chamber and a crankcase. The combustion chamber is where a fuel air mixture is burned to cause movement of a set of reciprocating pistons. The crankcase houses the crankshaft driven by the pistons. During operation, it is normal for the engine to generate “crankcase gas.” Crankcase gas is the combusted gas that leaks from the combustion chamber past the piston-cylinder gap into the crankcase. Crankcase gas includes oil. If this oil is not removed, it will be consumed by the engine when the crankcase gas is returned to the combustion chamber of the engine via the intake manifold.
It is known to use a Positive Crankcase Ventilation (“PCV”) system for filtering crankcase gas so as to remove oil particles and prevent those particles from the entering the engine and being consumed in the combustion process. Such PCV systems may also include an oil separating device configured to remove oil from crankcase gas. The crankcase gas flows into localized high velocity areas of the oil separator and impact at high velocity into a punched-hole impact plate (“PIP”) to promote separation of oil from the gas. The oil is re-introduced back to a sump via a drain device which is located generally at the bottom of the oil separator to allow for gravity to assist the drainage of oil. The sump generally holds excess oil in the system.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to increase the amount of oil separated from gas as compared to previous designs.